USPTO Issues New Guidance on AI-Assisted Inventions

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued new guidance on AI-assisted inventions. The new document supplants previous guidance issued in February of 2024. It clarifies that only natural persons are eligible inventors under patent law and that AI systems are tools, not co-inventors. A recent Sheppard Mullin memo summarizes the USPTO’s new guidance:

“The USPTO’s New Guidance simplifies and clarifies the path forward: there is no AI-specific inventorship test, AI cannot be named as an inventor, and traditional conception standards govern. For single-inventor, AI-assisted cases, focus on documenting human conception with particularity. For multi-inventor scenarios, continue to apply Pannu among human contributors. Extend these principles across utility, design, and plant filings, and ensure priority claims align with natural person inventorship to avoid fatal defects. With careful documentation and claim-focused analysis, AI can be a powerful instrument in innovation while maintaining clear, defensible human inventorship.”

While the USPTO’s perspective on patents and AI has shifted somewhat, the agency consistently expresses that patentability is unique to human inventions. Therefore, R&D departments using AI should keep detailed notes on how those AI systems are used. The memo also notes that the guidance only constitutes the agency’s position. The courts have final say over patentability and may disagree with the USPTO’s conclusions.